


‘cause aren’t we alive

by Anonymous



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Black Mesa Sweet Voice, Gen, aliens doing their best and making human friends is my weakness, benrey talks in lowercase and spells things however he pleases, i mostly do not make the sweet voice meanings rhyme sorry jesters, not quite human gordon, not tagging gordos so that the half life fans get peas and quite, some talk of death and blood loss but nothing more graphic than canon, yet another fic about The Arm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Benrey fixes Gordon's arm, at least by an extra-dimensional horror's definition of fixing. Gordon's just happy to be alive.aka: Benrey realizes that Gordon is human and therefore capable of dying and freaks the fuck out
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman
Comments: 25
Kudos: 205
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from The Living by San Fermin

"what happened to your arm?"

Jesus shitfucking _Christ_ does Gordon wish he was physically capable of killing this entity. He's going to die in this godawful facility and he can't even do it in peace. Figures that Benrey won't even do him the courtesy of falling asleep with the rest of the science team. Maybe pretending to be dead will make Benrey stop talking. Would Benrey talk to a corpse? Actually, he probably would. No chance of a quiet and dignified death, then-

"like, why isn't it back yet? grow it back please?"

Oh, this mother _fucker._

"What the fuck are you talking about? Human arms don't grow back, Benrey. No new arms for Gordon."

Oops, he's talking now. Guess there are worse ways to die than during a conversation, at least. He looks up to where Benrey is perched on a barrel and is taken aback by the expression on the security guard's face. Benrey's normally apathetic features are twisted into something that looks like genuine confusion. 

"you're not human though? grow arm back?" says Benrey, looking more and more lost by the second. What the fuck. If this is another one of Benrey's stupid jokes, it's bizarre enough that Gordon is willing to play along for a little while.

"Nope, I'm one hundred percent human dude. Born human, probably gonna die human in like an hour if my arm keeps bleeding like this. You better not say anything stupid at my funeral, man."

His tone of voice starts out lighthearted, but Gordon can't keep his voice from shaking by the last sentence. God, he's actually going to be dead soon. He had known it was a likely possibility ever since the start of this disaster, back at the anti-mass spectrometer, but he'd assumed it would be quick if it happened. Something he wouldn't have too much time to think about before it was through. What is he even supposed to do, now that he knows with certainty these are his last hours of existence? Not like he has many options, considering how weak he's become from the blood loss. 

"whuh? if. if you're human how were you walkin around in radiation? and uh, danger? all the other humans die so fast man, they don't even come back after, you don't die thankyou please? live for good friend benry?"

Gordon blinks through his tears (when had he started to cry?) and is met with a sight he never thought he'd see: Benrey in actual distress. The guard has hopped off his barrel and is pacing back and forth, screaming a quiet trail of dark blue sweet voice as he walks. Gordon is pretty sure he's hallucinating at this point. Benrey displaying anything other than malicious intent towards Gordon? Try harder, brain. Despite himself, he still tries to calm the security guard down. He's not about to look a gift distraction from his own problems in the mouth. Or uh, however the metaphor goes. He's several pints of lost blood past being capable of metaphors.

"Hey. Benrey, it's ok. Or well, it's not, it's really not ok, but uh. If you really didn't mean to hurt me, this whole time? That's, uh. A nicer reality to die in, so. Thanks." Unfortunately, this only seems to agitate Benrey further.

"not gonna die, gonna be a good. i've never human before but i can fix your arm good and then we can go playstation plus, we can play it, give me your arm please thankyou" says Benrey, talking in a rapidfire sort of panic that sounds wholly out of place coming from him.

Before Gordon has a chance to respond, Benrey grabs his arm around the stump and brings it right up to his face, tilting it back and forth to get a good look at it. Gordon hisses in pain and instinctively tries to yank his arm away, but Benrey just tightens his grip before opening his mouth and trilling a complex series of notes in sweet voice. Teal and green sparks of light swarm around the stump of Gordon's arm, occasionally joined by other colors which flash in and out of existence almost before he can comprehend them. Benrey sings louder, and the sparks become a swirling aurora of light, dancing down the length of Gordon's arm. His entire body feels like television static and he can't even see the air around the stump of his arm anymore, but behind the static there's a stranger sensation, an energy coursing through him and sweeping away the pain and weakness as it goes. He's not sure he can hear the sweet voice anymore, but it flows around him in a feeling beyond hearing. He thinks he might be screaming, but he can't hear that either.

And then, just as abruptly as the singing started, it stops. Gordon looks up from the incomprehensible mess of lights floating where his arm used to be, any words on his tongue dying before they can leave his mouth as he takes in the sight in front of him. Benrey looks like he's about to collapse.

"yo uh i think i'm-" says Benrey, passing out before he can finish the sentence. Great. At any point before this, Gordon would have paid money to see that happen. Trust Benrey to pass out as soon as his existence was anything other than an active threat to Gordon. Oh well, at least the guard was still breathing. He would probably recover just fine slumped against the wall like that. Reasonably sure that his teammate isn't about to die, Gordon shifts his focus to the whole Arm Situation.

Oh.

 _Huh_.

Where minutes before there had been a bloody stump, there was now an intact arm, still wreathed lightly in teal-green sweet voice but otherwise perfectly normal in appearance. Gordon tries flexing the fingers (his fingers? Regrowing a limb is an odd experience) and the- _his_ arm obeys dutifully, the threads of sweet voice dancing circles around his palm. He shakes his hand slightly in an attempt to dislodge the lights, and though for a moment they spin faster, they remain in orbit around his regrown arm. Huh. Maybe they're not done healing his arm yet? He reaches out to poke one of the lights with his other hand-

  
_**HUH.** _

  
Gordon yanks his hand back, dazedly trying to make sense of the feedback his nerves are sending him. When his gloved fingers touched the sweet voice, he had _felt_ it, almost as if he had poked the actual skin of his arm, but different. Fuzzier? Brighter? More sensitive? He can't think of a word that fits. A voice in the back of his head politely informs him that he's probably about to freak the fuck out, but he ignores it. He's been freaking the fuck out to some degree for the past several days, and besides, what kind of anomalous materials specialist would he be if he didn't investigate further? This definitely counts as anomalous material. He pokes one of the lights again.

  
....Yep, he absolutely felt that. The sweet voice was in the same semisolid state it had always appeared in, and though the sensation of poking a finger slightly through it was really fucking weird, it wasn't painful, and the light didn't seem damaged. Ok, Gordon focus time. He rests a gloved finger lightly against a light, and concentrates intently on the point of contact, trying to send some sort of signal for movement. His fingers flex slightly, but the strand of light stays in its leisurely orbit. A few more tries produce the same results, and Gordon lets out a small huff of irritation, which is cut short when he notices the lights flashing red in response. 

  
Right. Sweet voice is emotive. Gordon focuses on the relief of having his arm back, and after a moment is rewarded with ribbons of hopeful orange, which flash quickly into zigzags of yellow elation at his discovery, making his arm buzz with an odd tingling feeling. Except, the tingling persists after the yellow has faded back to a neutral light orange. For a moment Gordon wonders if he should be worried, but then every nerve in his arm lights up in pain, and he passes out before he can make the decision.


	2. Chapter 2

Gordon opens his eyes to the upsetting sight of Benrey's concerned face barely half a foot away from his own. His instinct to shriek and throw his hands up in front of him is understandable, in his opinion. His instinct to form a shroud of bright white lights around himself as a barrier is, well. Less understandable, both to himself and to Benrey, who has backed away to a more respectable distance and seems to be at a loss for words.

"Benrey. I'm asking this in the nicest way possible, because like, I'm super glad to have my arm back and everything but. What. The Hell. Did you do to me." Gordon asks, the lights around him retreating to hover in ribbons along his spine. They feel almost like a limb, if limbs were less tangible. 

"Your arm appears to have regrown! Nicely done, Gordon!"

Ah. He woke the rest of the science team up with his screaming. Coomer walks over to get a closer look at Gordon's new arm, Bubby and Tommy trailing behind him.

"How did. did you do this, Benrey?" Tommy asks, gesturing towards Gordon. 

"Yeah, how'd you grow his arm back? You never asked me if _I_ wanted an extra arm. And what's this shit on his back?" Says Bubby, reaching a hand out to poke at the lights, which in turn whip out and smack his arm away.

"Fucking. Don't just poke at me!" Gordon bristles, his lights flashing red. "Bubby's right though. Benrey, what the hell is going on with me?"

There's a long pause in which Benrey does nothing but smack his lips nervously. "i uh. that shouldn't have happened. sweet voice supposed to stay on your arm and then go away after. you're not supposed to uh. change the colors." Benrey twists the cuffs on his uniform shirt as he contemplates further. "shouldn't be allowed to do that but i guess it gave you permission. you got sweet voice now brooo. welcome to the club, club of sweet voiceee," Benrey drawls, the confidence returning to his voice as he comes up with his theory.

"Great. Could you uh, take it back? I don't know if I can deal with this right now man, there's so much shit going on already," Gordon sighs.

"could try. hand it to me?" Benrey steps towards Gordon and reaches a hand out in invitation. Woah, Gordon wasn't actually expecting him to follow through with being helpful, but he'll take it. He reaches a hand out in turn and trails the lights down it (and huh, he's moving them around without even thinking now, isn't he), grasping Benrey's hand in his own. The lights swirl around their joined hands for a second, before settling still.

Nothing else happens. Gordon concentrates, the lights flashing mint green as he tries to hand them back to Benrey, but that just puts his focus more intently on the feeling of Benrey's hand through his lights. It's a sensation almost like touch, but not quite. He can feel the comfortable buzz of life in Benrey's hands, alongside the faint press of something that feels almost like a conversation. The feeling twists slightly as he runs his lights across it, and Gordon feels-hears-senses a flash of what might be embarrassment before Benrey jerks his hand back, breaking the connection.

"uh yep those are not my sweet voices anymore sorry. all yours bro enjoy them" Benrey says, before singing a long note of silver, as if that somehow punctuates his point. Whatever emotion silver is, Gordon hasn't felt it with his lights yet, so he's not sure what Benrey wants from him.

"Shining like steel means don't spy on how I feel!" chimes in Tommy. Benrey nods stiffly. Ok, yeah, if he can actually sense emotions through these lights he probably shouldn't pry like that.

"Uh, sorry Benery. I didn't know I could do that, no more emotion snoopin' from Gordon," he says sheepishly, pulling in his lights to flicker around his neck like a scarf. Something about the position feels soothing. As far as experiences from new and alien features go, he supposes soothing is alright. He can handle this.

"s'okay. little, uh. baby gordon gotta learn how his sweet voice works, i won't write you up about it." Benrey hesitates, before inexplicably licking the palm of his hand and holding it out towards Gordon again. "friends? friendship handshake?" asks Benrey, expression pleading.

"I'm not fucking, touching your spit hand, dude" says Gordon, laughing in spite of himself. "But yeah, we can try the friends thing." He claps Benrey on the shoulder with his own, spit free hand. There's some shit they should probably talk about later, but Gordon's honestly just happy to know that Benrey never meant him any actual harm. 

"Gordon, you must touch this man's Spit Hand!" says Coomer cheerfully. God damn it. "What kind of friendship isn't founded around the good ol' Spit Shake Promise! Why, I remember when I first met my dear Bubby-"

"Shake his damn spit hand, Gordon, some of us would like to get moving eventually." Fuck, Bubby's in on it too. Gordon looks helplessly at Tommy, hoping that at least one of his friends has his back with this.

"It's, good manners to shake hands, Mr. Freeman!" says Tommy. His voice holds the same cheer it always does, but his grin is absolutely shit-eating. These fuckers. Fine. Gordon licks his newly regenerated palm and holds it out towards Benrey, any hopes that the guard won't actually go through with the bit crushed when Benrey grabs his hand and shakes it enthusiastically. Eugh. 

"friends forever brooo!!!!" Benrey says in a singsong voice, joyous yellow sweet voice spilling from his mouth around the words. Gordon pulls a face and wipes his palm off on his HEV suit, but his own lights betray his thoughts by briefly flashing yellow in response. He's still riding the high of cheating death, so sue him. 

"Can we fucking get going already?" says Bubby, leaving the room as he speaks. Coomer and Tommy follow quickly behind, leaving Gordon and Benrey alone in the room.

"Listen, Benrey. We gotta talk about this later, but uh. Thanks for saving my life." Gordon hesitates, not sure what else to say. What's the policy for thanking someone for regrowing one of your limbs? Benrey derails this train of thought by grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him towards the door.

"c'mon friend, don't wanna be uh. slowey joey." Benrey says, letting go of Gordon to dash ahead of the group as soon as they're both in the next room. Well. This has been a weird fucking start to the day. Gordon follows his friends further into the facility, lights trailing behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the purposes of this story, sweet voice generally does not rhyme, but if Tommy translates it he WILL do his goddamn best to rhyme it because he jests 'em with the best of 'em.

**Author's Note:**

> i do not know anything about "writing" or "literature" and wrote this mostly in notepad so apologies for that. tryin my best out here though.


End file.
